


A quiet sort of introspection

by crackinthecup



Series: The swords have been cast down [2]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst and Feels, Character Study, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Introspection, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV Second Person, Relationship Study, post-Dagor Dagorath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24808720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crackinthecup/pseuds/crackinthecup
Summary: You remember the day when you first realised that you loved him. The knowledge came to you gently, easily, as if you woke up one morning, opened the curtains, and there it was, your love for him, like a blanket of snow stretching out to the horizon.It is early morning and Mairon is asleep, and Melkor finds himself watching him and thinking about their relationship: how much their lives have changed, how things could and should have been. Set post-Dagor Dagorath, when Mairon and Melkor have both been allowed to reincarnate in Arda Unmarred.
Relationships: Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor/Sauron | Mairon
Series: The swords have been cast down [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947577
Comments: 10
Kudos: 101





	A quiet sort of introspection

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sort of sequel to _[Strange New World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24074413)_ , although written in a different style. That said, you don’t need to have read _Strange New World_ to understand what’s going on here!

Mairon is asleep beside you. He looks more peaceful than you’ve ever seen him before, in all the years you spent together in your old life. Something swells in your chest at the sight of him, something you know to be love.

It’s funny, how much more brightly it shines within you now, beyond oaths and crowns and empires. You remember the day when you first realised that you loved him. The knowledge came to you gently, easily, as if you woke up one morning, opened the curtains, and there it was, your love for him, like a blanket of snow stretching out to the horizon.

He was in his forge and the ruddy light of the furnace made his hair blaze like bloodied gold. There was a look of intense concentration on his face that broke into a dazzling smile when he saw you, and in that moment your heart skipped a beat and you simply knew: you wanted him by your side. Servant or slave, lover or lieutenant, maybe none of them or maybe all of them at once. Back then you never felt the need to define his role in your life. He was yours and that was all that mattered.

You smile, a little sadly. He deserved so much more than what you gave him. You touch his hair, feather-light, careful not to wake him as you smooth a few tousled strands behind his ear. He shifts closer to you in his sleep, nuzzling his face into your chest, and you wrap your arm around his waist.

After your defeat in the Dagor Dagorath, when you were brought before Eru Ilúvatar in the Timeless Halls and offered a choice, you wondered if you would regret picking a simple, unassuming life with Mairon over the power to create your own world; the Flame Imperishable finally entrusted to you, the culmination of everything you have ever worked and bled and killed for.

But now, with Mairon nestled in your arms, you know with preternatural certainty that you will never regret it. No kingdom can ever be worth his happiness. It is a lesson you learned too late, a lesson that could have spared you both much grief in your old life. But there isn’t an awful lot you can do about that now.

You can only take life hour by hour, day by day, slotting Mairon back together like a puzzle: holding him when he cries and giving him space when he needs it and sitting next to him through his silences, until the darkness that still grips him sometimes lifts for a day or for a season. You do not mind. He is your whole world, now.

If you can make him smile and laugh and roll his eyes at you in that fond way of his, then that is creation enough for you.

You owe him this much. For millennia beyond count he served you with unwavering loyalty and in return you gave him… what? A dark, violent love that he clutched to him like viscera spilling from a fatal injury. You loved him, yes, but it was different then. It was spliced through with hatred, for your brethren, for elf-kind, for a world that did not want you. Even for him, growing in skill and majesty, ascending as your own power failed. It was impure love, tainted by your need to dominate, to control, to possess him so utterly that he would never be able to betray you.

He wouldn’t have betrayed you. You know that now and you bitterly rue all the times you broke him on some unfounded suspicion, a whiff of treachery that you imagined amid the paranoia of those days. Your reign left your mind in tatters, your power drained into the fabric of the world until you were nothing more than an empty vessel, a relic of something much greater than yourself, bearing that holy light upon your brow and hating it for what it signified: your failure, your loneliness, your otherness.

In truth, you hated yourself most of all.

By the end, you think he was the only one who still felt something for you that was not hatred or fear or some intermingling of the two.

You press a soft kiss to the top of his head, hold him that little bit tighter, your fingers trembling.

There are so many things you wish you could have told him before the breaking of the world. _I love you_ and _I’m sorry_ and _thank you_. So many wasted opportunities. But you suppose that everything you’ve ever been and said and done has brought you here: lying beside Mairon in the stillness of early morning, the whole of eternity stretching out before you, bright and brilliant in its promise. There is no more need for wars, for conquests; there is only peace, and a sense of completeness that you realise you’ve been searching for all your life.

Mairon stirs in your arms, and you shake your head to clear it. It takes you by surprise, how often you find yourself slipping into this quiet sort of introspection. It’s not something you’ve ever done before. You used to make your way through life crushing everything in your path, holding power sacred and being corrupted in your pursuit of it, every gentle thing in you left to corrode and wither. But so many things have changed since those days. You suppose it’s not too much of a stretch to think that this would change too.

"Hello," Mairon murmurs, voice soft with sleep, and for the umpteenth time you think of just how lucky you are to have him. "Have you been staring at me again?"

"No," you say, smiling, and he chuckles at the obvious lie.

"There are far more exciting things you can do in the morning than watching me sleep."

"I like watching you sleep," you say truthfully. This honesty between you is still new, still awkward. It still takes effort to share your innermost thoughts with him so freely, to let him see you down to the smallest atoms of your being; but where once that might have scared you, that vulnerability bursting out of you in a fit of rage, now there is only a sense of wonder, hushed and endless. You cup his face in your hands, feel the warmth of him radiating through you like a merry little flame clasped between your fingers.

"Do you now?" he says, the corners of his lips quirking upwards in a smile he can’t quite suppress, gentle and teasing.

"How could I not? You're perfect."

He scoffs softly. "Not many people would agree with you."

"None of them matter. Only you do."

He stays silent for so long that you start to get worried. You can sense the change in his mood. There is something grave about him that was not there before, a muted sorrow that tugs at your heartstrings. You let the minutes crawl by, let him gather his thoughts; he always opens up to you if you give him time.

"Thank you," he says eventually, so quietly that you hardly hear him.

"For what?"

"Coming back."

Your chest aches and aches and _aches_. You never thought you could feel this much. You let your fingers slip from his cheeks to curl around his jaw, raise his head so you can look him in the eye; you can feel his pulse through the press of your skin.

"Of course I came back," you say and it comes out as a whisper. "It's you. I - _of course_ I came."

You want to say something else, something more. You open your mouth, try to make sense of the knot of emotions in your chest. But in that moment words seem harder than ruling a kingdom ever did.

No matter – Mairon seems to instinctively understand all that remains unspoken, or else he has found some meaning in or between the few words that you did manage to say. His eyes are very bright. You press a kiss to the bridge of his nose, one lingering brush of the lips against his warm, freckled skin.

"Of course I came," you repeat, and he looks at you as though every dark, shameful, hurtful thing inside him is coming undone. "And I’m glad that I did."


End file.
